


Finding Fault

by Timekpr



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M, past jack harkness/original jack harkness, past lisa/ianto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-14
Updated: 2012-10-14
Packaged: 2017-11-16 07:26:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/536988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Timekpr/pseuds/Timekpr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack has a lot to hate himself for, and some nights he can't stand to be alone. Will be Jack/Ianto but this is not a love story. It's not for children and could be offensive to some readers. Questionable consent, light BDSM, slash be warned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ch 1 is Jack's POV

There should be an upside to no longer sleeping, but if there is Jack can't seem to find it. Even his nightmares have learned to chase him deep into the waking world. He can't shake the sorrow of leaving 1941, the look in the real Jack's eyes when he walked away. Around him the empty Hub echoes with the soft hiss of falling water and the deeper whuff-whuff of the pterodactyl breathing. This is the time the horror rushes back and solitude is its invitation. 

Riding back in the SUV was the first flash of fear. He is a dead man wearing a stolen name. Worse, he stole history. The record changes that made him “Captain Jack Harkness” deleted from history the story of a real man's final heroic death. He's made some small restitution in telling Tosh what happened to the Captain but confronting the real man has forced him to admit that he's a murderer. He'll spend all of eternity chained to the memory of a good man who vanished to give his name away.

After the team leaves he traces the pattern of a crystal glass and starts to wonder how much of it is his fault. Would Capt. Harkness have died without the knowledge he had seen in these blue eyes? Did the goodbye kiss make one of those young pilots doubt their commander? If he'd never stepped into 1941 would Capt. Harkness still be alive? With all his years of crossing time cause and effect blend until one can't be separate from the other. 

From one perspective, it couldn't be his fault. He first set foot in 1941 after Captain Harkness was dead, stole his identity, and joined the Doctor. Joining the Doctor takes him to the future, where he cheats death and goes back to the past. He should have been nothing more than a silent witness to events but he couldn't leave well enough alone. Now he knows that he was there before, changing the Captain's actions, making his death more likely if not outright causing it. He's lived through the 40's and knows how homosexuals are treated and still he kissed that man publicly. 

He's reaching for the phone before any one thought is clear in his mind. Ianto's voice sounds calm over the line; barely a trace of disturbance when his greeting is met with only silence. He can't choke out words, everything trapped behind a wall of guilt. The crystal slips through his shaking hand and shatters on the floor and hearing the crash Ianto knows where he's needed. 

"I'm on my way, sir.” Then the soft click of disconnection.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ianto's POV

The roar of falling water blends into the sound of blood pounding through Ianto's head as he enters the hub. Nineteen minutes after the mysterious silent call from the Hub and he's timed each minute by his own heartbeat. The lights were dim just as he'd left them hours before, only the lamp in Jack's office casting eerie reflections and distorted shadows across the floor. 

Long habit slowed his speedy approach to the lighted room. Wouldn't do any good to break a leg charging to the rescue, he thinks bitterly. Ianto's hand slips down and opens the button of his jacket and sweeps it back to clear the holster. Anything that leaves Jack lost for words calls for extreme caution. At the doorway he rests his fingers just grazing the grip of his gun, body turned sidewise to minimize his exposure while he scans the room with eyes and ears.

Everything looks normal. Jack seated at the desk, no obvious sign of distress or struggle. Ianto compares the items on the desk to his precise mental map and notes only a single discrepancy – only one crystal glass where two had lain earlier. His tension only increases as Jack continues to sit silently, Jack who'd always have his mouth open and running long before anyone got this close to the inner sanctum.

“Sir?” His tone was measured, calculated to be questioning but carrying no hint of his inner distress. A distress that tightens his grip on the gun when Jack remains silent and unmoving.

Ianto steps forward into the golden light of the office. A snapping crunch underfoot reports the current location of one missing crystal glass. That mystery solved he can study Jack's face closely at last. What he sees drives him back two steps in shock.

The man in the chair wears Jack's face but somehow isn't Jack. Every mask tossed aside, nothing blocks Ianto's gaze from staring straight into Jack's soul. All the energy that normally animates Jack has been drained away just like the last drops of scotch in a broken glass. The intense healthy blue of Jack's eyes has bleached to a pale translucent grey so inhuman that he starts sharply forward to lay one hand on the motionless man. Before his searching fingers can register a pulse Jack reacts to his touch with a deep irregular breath.

“Jack?” He honestly was at a loss for what else to say. It was immediately obvious what gripped Jack so tightly. Ianto was intimately familiar with wounds caused by pain, loss, and guilt and Jack was in no condition to hide the damage those three poisons were etching into his soul.

Jack's answering voice is barely a whisper, “Don't call me that.” 

The raw anguish tainting those words drops Ianto to his knees hard against the cold floor. Reflexively he tightens his grip but Jack never flinches. Slowly Jack looks down to meet Ianto's eyes. Torchwood had shown death to Ianto in many guises but the one that stares at him now is as familiar as his own shaving mirror. It freezes him for a long moment, seeing suddenly that Jack too lives each day with the pain that is his own constant companion. 

He knows nothing will fix this. What has caused Jack's crisis is irrelevant and Ianto knows that from his own breakdown after Lisa's murder. He's learned to live in spite of pain, begun to accept who he is because of the pain. No words can ease this kind of torment. No gesture of forgiveness will be welcomed. 

In the end he forces Jack's lips down to meet his own hoping that is the one thing that just might help.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ianto's POV, more notes at end

Ianto intends the kiss a gesture of acceptance, a way to draw Jack back to the here and now. Intentions aside, as soon as Jack's lips connect with his it becomes something else entirely. He just hadn't considered how raw they both were when stripped of all their armor. How much anger still churns his gut over the way Lisa had been stolen from him; _"stolen twice"_ , comments a dark voice in his mind.  
  
As he forces his tongue roughly into Jack's unresisting mouth he pushes all his resentment in as well, turning a gift of comfort into something dangerous. Caught between hate and need Ianto pulls Jack completely down to the floor heedless of the scattered glass shards turning to powder beneath their legs. He claws awkwardly, one handed, at his tie afraid to release his bruising grip on Jack even long enough to properly unknot the silk. A bare flash of copper flares in his mouth and briefly he wonders who drew first blood and if it even matters.  
  
Once the crimson silk tie is free of his neck Jack's hands rip at his shirt and the buttons begin to snap apart with a cracking sound that seems louder than any gunshot in the silent Hub. He shoves his lover _his boss, his friend, his enemy_ away forcefully, sliding Jack backward hard enough that the chair tips over with a deafening crash as Jack half-rolls, half-slides across the floor. The noise just makes it more right, more real than the half-life they both live in the shadow-world of Torchwood. He captures both of Jack's hands in his own after a brief struggle and pins the stronger man flat with the force of his will more than the strength of his body.   
  
He fights for every bit of control he can while binding Jack's wrists. Not trying to control his emotions for this once, seeking only physical control of Jack in every way. They've been together before, hot and slick with physical passion that was only a relief valve. Never has Ianto felt this powerful and alive in anyone's arms. He's not sure exactly what he wants right know but he knows with absolute clarity that he's not stopping until he gets it.   
  
Jack's cock is rock-hard: rigid enough that it digs painfully into his thigh even padded through both their trousers. Ianto grinds himself viciously against Jack and leans in to lick the blood from the parted swollen lips beneath him. When he wrenches himself to his feet and sheds his trousers along with pants, shoes, and socks the vision of Jack sprawled helplessly at his feet sends a jolt of lust coursing through every molecule of his flesh.  
  
Ianto sweeps his gaze over Jack from top to bottom, cataloging each detail for later recall; wrists wrapped in blood red bonds, fingers flexing spasmodically clenching nothing but air, arms extended above his head well past the point of comfort. Jack's face is turned to one side, each tendon in his neck straining against flesh in stark relief, a sheen of sweat glistening on each span of bared skin. _“Or is it tears, Ianto?”_ asks the dark voice.  His eyes focus on the tight hard bulge of the erection, so much more erotic trapped beneath linen and wool than when revealed to the light.   
  
Kneeling with deliberate intent in the midst of shattered glass and overturned furniture, he methodically strips Jack – first the sweat-soaked shirt, then ripping away the fine cotton tee beneath with a sound just like a weevil tearing into human meat. Moving down he drags the belt free and pauses to fasten it like a leash, securing the silken bundle of Jack's wrists to the heavy chair beside them. His nails scrape over tender skin when he pulls down the zipper and Jack's moan could be pain or pleasure - it doesn't matter which one anymore. Slipping one hand beneath Jack with deceptive tenderness he rolls Jack over on his belly, exposing acres of unmarked flesh and the tense rounded cheeks of the most perfect ass Ianto has ever seen.  
  
He feels like an animal now as he falls forward to hands and knees, Jack; _“his prey”_ , he reminds himself  face down beneath him. When he drives his hips down and forward there is disappointment – they are both so covered in slick sweat that Ianto is denied the friction he so desperately needs. Still he grinds hard, dragging the aching curve of his cock between those perfect cheeks. Frustration forces a growl from his throat and clenches his hands into fists while his hips drive forward and back relentlessly. Somehow Jack finds the leverage to move and everything but sensation vanishes from his mind as Ianto feels his cock bury itself deep into burning heat.  
  
It's too tight, too dry, too hot and its too damn perfect – two voices groaning, both their bodies moving relentlessly together. No fantasy of control compares to this; no one is in control, no rational thought interferes , and nothing can stop the inevitable orgasm. Climax slams into their joined flesh and overtakes Ianto with the power of a tidal wave. His scream is torn from his body but lost in the hot thick flesh of the neck locked between his jaws. Rushing coppery blood floods his mouth as Jack's seed pumps out onto the unyielding floor.  
  
Jack breaks the silence as they lay spent upon the floor. “ I could fall in love with you.”  
  
Ianto thinks for a minute, contemplates all the possible answers, discarding all the predictable responses to that statement. He thinks so long that before he's determined his response Jack has wriggled around enough to make eye contact and its just a bit like being under a microscope.  
  
Ianto settles on absolute truth, “But you won't, sir.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was my first real attempt at writing slash, back in Jan of 2011. Constructive critics are always welcome, comments are how I improve.


End file.
